I suppose a creative crossroads in life is when more than one friend suggests that I should start writing fiction, queer fiction, and a bulb flickers somewhere deep in my head – not quite lit up but also not dying out.
My first outer reaction is one of incredulity because I have never seen myself writing fiction in any form even as I have loved reading it. For as long as I can think of, right from the start of my career, I have been wedded to non-fiction writing – as an activist, journalist, social researcher, and archivist.
I have found the writing I have been engaged in to be emotionally fulfilling, giving me a sense of purpose and direction. There has also been appreciation coming forth for my articles and books, often from people engaged in similar walks of life as mine. Otherwise though, from many others, the appreciation has been a wide-eyed and hopefully well-meaning “Wow!” This exclamation has then led to a “very nice”, some curiosity about the content of the writing, eventually tapering off with something like “You’re so intellectual, no?” Leaving me to wonder if what they really mean is that my writing is too difficult for them, unreadable, or even boring.
No hard feelings though. Writings about gender, sexuality, health issues, and human rights may not have a wide appeal, or the form of my writing may not have many takers. And then there are the digital distractions – why read when you can reel? Which is why the thought of fiction writing seems exciting. I could be writing about the same issues as before but presenting them differently, or I could be writing about the intimate aspects of the same issues as before – aspects that are real but have not found space in my writing about real issues. In doing so, I could also be reaching out to a wider readership.
After having recently finished work on my latest book, which relates to the Indian queer movements just as the previous three did, the thought of walking down the fiction path has become stronger.
I attempted writing short stories during school and college days in Hindi and English, including a whodunnit thriller inspired by Agatha Christie’s writings. These were half-hearted attempts, where I overwhelmed myself with the plot sooner than later. If it were not the challenges in the writing process itself, there was the load of studies preventing me from immersing myself in the process.
One of the first serious attempts where I managed to go all the way was a short story In Pursuit of Happiness written in the second year of my graduation studies (in early 1990). It was a personal coming out story of sorts as gay. The protagonist was a lonely single man, an eligible bachelor who evokes curiosity in the narrative voice of the story, who is a friend and neighbour of the protagonist. One evening, the protagonist surprises the narrator with the gender of his dinner date and compels him to think about the social order that forces people into stifling shells.
I submitted the story to The Telegraph for a short story contest, and received a regret letter soon enough. But the submission involved acquiring a reference letter authenticating the originality of the writing. I remember approaching my English professor in college, who did not take long before giving me the reference letter. He read my mind without a word being said, and encouraged me to write more. When I expressed an interest in journalism, he introduced me to an experienced journalist who I realized was gay as well. This acquaintance turned into a long-lasting professional connection and friendship, a story that I have often narrated to queer friends and researchers. But my attempts at story writing fell by the wayside.
In 1991-92, Tears of Joy, another queer-themed story that I tried to serialise in Pravartak, one of India’s earliest queer publications that I edited, did not reach its conclusion when the publication went into hibernation for some time. I did finish the story and submitted it to a ‘mainstream’ publication, but received a regret letter. Around the same time, I wrote several story outlines for a creative writing course I was pursuing through an open university, but never got around to working on them as I became busy with my first job as a sub-editor in a newspaper. A submission to the erstwhile Target, a popular children’s magazine, was also rejected along with encouraging advice from the editor to try my hand at ‘straight’ writing (sic) before attempting humour for young readers. Many years later, in 1998, In Pursuit of Happiness was published in Pravartak, but it was not a new attempt at story writing. By this time, non-fiction writing – in various forms – had become part of my vocation.
With such a track record, the idea of writing fiction itself seems fictional. Am I even capable? Can I switch from the mixed genre non-fiction writing that I have been so used to? This train of thought often merges into other thoughts around fictionality. For instance, some of my longtime queer friends and I have often looked back and talked about what our expectations were as queer persons two or three decades ago, and whether those expectations have been fulfilled to any degree? Did the expectations back then seem fantastical? The progress that we have made as communities and socio-political movements, is that real or fictional?
I am now in a nearly one-and-a-half-year-old romantic companionship with a man. I believe that the friendship and love at the core of this relationship is real, but is the romance a pleasant fiction? Is romance in general a fiction, perhaps a necessary one to make life liveable? A placebo that makes you feel better and reach higher ground?
Even as these thoughts crowd my mind, I feel tired at times. Perhaps this tiredness comes from having done the same kind of work year after year. And yet, it is not a feeling of regret; rather it compels me to think about ‘what next’. So then, is the tiredness real, or is it a ruse planted by life to get me on to a different path? I guess I will know only if I tread that path.
Parting thought: What if I am not real? What if I am a fictional character? The heavily flawed protagonist of a story (my life story) being written by someone, somewhere even as I write this? What will I do next?
